Esther+Stark

On June 11, 1917, 23-year-old homemaker Esther Stark died at Chicago's German Hospital from a criminal abortion perpetrated by midwife Mary Groh, who was never prosecuted because she died several days later from causes not indicated in the source.

Groh had arranged for Esther to board at the home of Mrs. Scholtes for her abortion.

Esther, a Pennsylvania native, was the daughter of E.W. and Anna (Bowen) McMullen.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion across America.

For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].



 For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources:
 * Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database
 * Death certificate
 * "Dr. Meinhardt Again Charged With Abortion," Chicago Daily Tribune, June 13, 1917
 * //When Abortion Was a Crime//, Leslie Reagan





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